


Thinking Don't Make it So

by ariadnes_string



Category: The Killing
Genre: Celibacy, Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:45:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does it mean to be celibate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking Don't Make it So

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: For the "Virginity/Celibacy" square on my kink_bingo card. Inspired by something Holder says in 1x05.
> 
> a/n: Spoilers for Season 1 only. I haven't seen S2 yet, so apologies if this deviates from that canon.

She thinks about Holder. Odd times—running, or stuck at a light, or when a file takes too long to load—he sneaks into her mind.

It’s not the kind of thing she _should_ think about, and it’s certainly not something she has time to think about it, even if it were okay. But it’s what she does. She thinks.

_Six months celibate. Personal reasons._ Well, she has an idea of what those reasons are now that’s she’s eavesdropped on his meeting. But still. It doesn’t stop her thinking.

What does it mean to be celibate? She could call herself celibate, if celibate meant not having much sex. How could she, with the job, with Jack, with Rick in Sonoma? Of course, it’s better now. There'd been years, literally years, before Rick, when Jack was a baby. Well. She’s lived through worse. But it hadn’t been something she’d chosen, she can tell you that. Besides, given the opportunity, she’d always--. Though, yeah, there were probably times she should’ve said no.

But what would make somebody do that as a choice? That’s what gets her. Was it just one of the twelve steps, or had something made sex so disastrous that a guy like Holder—and even to herself, she won’t specify what kind of guy that is—would cut himself off? Had he robbed the women he’d slept with, like he robbed his sister? Had he hurt them? Or had he just woken up one morning too many in a room he didn’t recognize, next to a girl he couldn’t name?

And here she has to forcibly steer herself away from imagining a younger Holder sprawled out on someone’s dirty sheets. If she lets herself, she can see him: naked, face down, the space between his shoulders free of the tattooed cross that’s lodged there now. He’s junkie thin but strong—you can see it in the ripcord muscles of his back, his legs, even when he’s asleep. In her mind’s eye, he stirs, reaches out a long arm for the woman next to him, gives her the snaky, teasing grin he’s given Sarah often enough.

She blinks and chases the image away.

But the thoughts come back if she’s not careful.

How do you know you’re celibate, instead of just not sleeping with anybody at the moment? Do you test yourself? Is that what Holder’s doing when he invades people’s space, gets in their faces, yells and leers—is he putting himself to the test? Or is he just discharging some of the crazy energy that must build up, in a guy like him, deprived of its natural outlet?

If you’re a man, does celibate mean not letting yourself get hard? Or just not acting on it if you do? Does Holder test himself by looking at pictures, videos, girls? Curl his lips around a cigarette, drag in, blow out, trying to slow himself down. Does he let himself get to the brink, but refuse to go over it? Wouldn’t that kind of denial be its own kind of thrill?

What if—and she’s in dangerous territory here, but she lets herself go there, just this once—what if he were looking at her? She’s no fool, she knows she’s still pretty, if she lets her hair down, and sheds the sweaters she wears to work. She’s seen the way he looks at her sometimes. If her arms were bare, her throat, her hair loose on her shoulders and her breasts heavy against her skin? If she got up inside his guard, like he does with the people they interview? She wouldn’t be scared by his height, the sarcastic twist of his mouth, size of his hands. She’s get right up in his face. Would his celibacy pass that test?

Something suspect blooms low in her belly and she finds herself imagining his body again, trying to parse its true dimensions under those bulky clothes, wondering if he’s marked himself in ways she hasn’t seen yet, more reminders of getting clean. She wonders what it would be like for him, if he gave in, gave in to _her_ after all those months. Would it break him open? Would it break her?

She stops herself short. Takes a few breaths, empties her mind.

But another thought creeps in.

That day, that endless day when Jack was missing. When she finally lost it, sobbing with her back against the concrete piling, and he crouched beside her, a chaste hand on her shoulder, the lightest possible touch. If she’d given in then, done what so much of her wanted to do—pressed her face into his neck and tried to crawl inside his ugly, smelly cotton jacket—if she let him put his arms around her and maybe kiss the top her head—let him murmur ridiculous words of comfort to her and almost carry her to the car, let him shielding her from the unis eyes and from the rain—would that have breached his celibacy?

Or would that have been something else again?


End file.
